Hypothesis
Patient-reported outcome measures reflect objective functional recovery after surgical repair of an acute Achilles tendon rupture, as measured by heel-rise limb symmetry.
What failed
In 76 men followed a median of 41 months, median ATRS was 97 and median AOFAS 98, yet median limb symmetry was 87.5% and only 40.8% reached the 90% threshold; neither score correlated with symmetry (rho = 0.190, p = 0.100; rho = 0.218, p = 0.058), and the scores did not differ between the high- and low-symmetry groups even though heel-rise repetitions did.
Broken assumption
High patient-reported scores mean objective function has returned.
Why
The authors conclude the questionnaires do not capture persistent limb-symmetry deficits and should be read alongside performance-based tests.
From the published paper: Doğruöz et al. Journal of Clinical Medicine, 2026. ↗CC BY